The newspaper landed at my door with a thud. I thought something serious had happened to the government.
It was just a heavy paper filled with ads.
“Look at this phone,” I told my wife. “The advertisement says it can take a picture of the moon.” She looked up from her tea. “Did you take a picture of the plumber’s bill before you lost it?”
I turned the page. There are limits to what even the finest technology can do for a man under questioning.
A young fellow at the phone shop asked me what was wrong with my old phone. I said the battery ran down by lunchtime. He nodded gravely and showed me a phone that could survive half an hour underwater. I told him I generally had lunch on land.
He called his manager.
The manager explained that if I bought the phone that afternoon, I would save eight thousand rupees. I asked him how much I would save if I went home. He picked up my old phone and examined it, possibly hoping to find something seriously wrong with it.
Just then my wife rang. It performed beautifully.
“Come home,” she said. “The fridge man is here.”
The fridge man listened to the rattling, pulled the refrigerator away from the wall and fished out a steel spoon that had fallen behind it. When he switched it on again, it hummed quietly. I had spent a week telling visitors the compressor was going and we needed a new fridge.
My wife handed me the spoon. “You can use that to eat your words,” she said.
I keep hearing that we should spend this festive season to help the nation’s economy. Fair enough. I paid the fridge man, bought sweets from the shop downstairs and took the family out for dinner. The nation even got a little extra when I let my grandsons order dessert without first asking how much it cost.
Then I came home and put aside the money I’d nearly spent on a phone.
Years ago, when business was slow, a customer told me on Friday that his cheque was ready. On Monday it was still ready. Three Fridays later, it was the readiest cheque in Bombay. Meanwhile, the school fees fell due. We paid them out of what we’d put by in better months. I can’t remember what we went without to save that money. I can still remember how it felt to hand over those fees on time.
So I had the battery replaced. My grandsons asked what I was going to do with the money I’d saved. “Keep it,” I said. “For what?” they asked in unison. “To get gold” I told them.
My old phone rang before breakfast. It was my grandsons. They wanted a gift. “Sure,” I said, “Let’s go down to the store!”
Their joy was the gold I was looking for...!
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